A key focus of this blog is the history of Jacksons in Ireland. I am specially curious about those who may be related to Sir Thomas Jackson (1841-1915). His life is key to understanding how a dozen or so young men, sons of Irish tenant farmers, shaped the future of international banking in the Far East in the late 1800s. I also use this blog as a place for playful posts: book and restaurant reviews, recipes, and events in my life. WARNING: Note the date of each post. Some may be outdated.

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Saturday, March 16, 2013

Kilcullin and the Camphill Movement

I arrived in Kilcullen, a small town in County Kildare feeling
like a veritable piece of The Proverbial. A week earlier, I had picked up a
cold and was still snuffling and barking like an old sheep. Clearly it was one
of those times when it was important to: Stay Calm, Be Brave, Wait for theSigns. Then, of course, I did see a sign, and as a result, I met
Pauline.

Signs for Manna Foods and Kilcullen Farm and Nature Reserve.

Initially, I had only been curious about what Manna Foods
might have in store for me. Moments earlier, I had checked in and dropped my
bags at Bardon’s Guest House just around the corner. Maybe, I thought, Manna just
might have something that would complement my intended evening repast of soda bread
and cheese. Perhaps an apple.

As it was, the shop was closed, but Pauline was still there,
checking accounts on her computer. Come
in, she said. We had no sooner started chatting, than I was overwhelmed by
one of my post-viral, asthma attacks. Damn.

Pauline ran next door to fetch a glass of water from the
nearby kitchen, returned, and gave me the space to reassemble myself. Once I
had caught my breath, she gave me some names of people to see, and things to do
in my brief time in Kilcullen. I wrote it all down on my hand – my palm pilot – having left my diary
back at the B&B. There I was, travelling without pen and paper. Tsk. Tsk. It will, however, indicate to
those who know me well just how entirely out to lunch I was.

It turned out that Pauline is one of the many souls who work
to keep The
Bridge Community afloat. Part of what this Community aims to do seems to
have much in common with L’Arche, another
way of integrating and supporting people with special needs. L’Arche was started
by Canadian Jean Vanier. The Camphill movement
started in Scotland, inspired by the writings of Rudolph Steiner. Both L’Arche
and Camphill start with the premise that we are all special, and we all have
needs. It may sound simple, but it is definitely more challenging to put into
practice than what it might seem. There is that damnable thing about being
human, after all.

As I walked back to Bardon’s, I recalled a time in the early
1970s. Three women with special needs living in a L’Arche Community Home in
Victoria BC first introduced me to this inclusive approach. They were helping
me train my staff at a YWCA camp. In a session that I will never forget, a young
woman explained to a couple of dozen of us, in a sentence that took several,
painful minutes to stutter out: I really
hate it when people say I know, I know, when they haven’t taken the time to
hear me.

This Community that I had stumbled into in Kilcullen also
made me think of our own Roberts
Creek Cohousing, another approach to interdependent living. This community includes
more than seventy people, some of whom live with so-called special needs that
have labels, and some who live with all sorts of other kinds of needs, temporary,
or otherwise. We all stumble along in the great human experiment. When you boil
it all down, we all have special needs. Moi
aussi.

It
may not be obvious, but the chicken coop is on wheels.Perhaps soon, we will have something like this in Roberts Creek. I know
it is being talked about.

The
next day, I enjoyed a delicious, affordable lunch here. If you find yourself in
Kilcullen, I can fully recommend it. Most of the ingredients are organic, some
of it grown on their farm just around the corner.

About Me

Author And Researcher. I am currently writing a book on the life of Sir Thomas Jackson. He was the son of tenant farmers, born just before the Famine in South Armagh, who was knighted because he not only lead HSBC into the 20th Century, but was also responsible for assisting with the funding of much of the economic development in China & Japan in the late 1800s. My first published book was "Some Become Flowers: Living with Dying at Home".